Drown
by Bellsie805
Summary: There's oxygen in water.


Title: Drown

Author: Bellsie

Disclaimer: Not mine

Rating: PG-13 for the annnngst

Pairing: Um, nobody really

Author's Note: Studying for chem.—avoiding the fact that writing this does not constitute as studying. Marti as always, for the beta.

_There's oxygen in water. _

;';h;';

This always happens and he has no doubt that it will continue to happen. He is not God, as much as he convinces others that he is. He is human. He is human.

;';a;';

She is lost. People die. Isn't that a certainty of life? Isn't that the only certainty of this life? _We are born to die_. _We are born to die._

;';r;';

His father dies of cancer and he knows malignance in the form of spreading guilt and multiplying paperwork. House knew. He knew.

;';j;';

Watching people fall apart and spin is his favorite past time. He's the one who picks up the bodies from the river after they've decomposed and spent too much time there. He comes last.

;';l;';

The Yankees win. The five inches of rain that the Princeton-Plainsboro area receives enhance the holes in her ceiling. She dreams that night of children running down hallways.

;';together;';

They should be in a dance troupe. They are not doctors. They are actors. The patient tells them this much when he dies. _You people are bastards_. _Make the pain stop_.

House knows too much about controlling pain and almost slips a Vicodin to the man as he throttles death and throws it to the floor. Death's a fighter, though.

(And House is a selfish man.)

--

There is a phone call. It is simple and terse and everything death _should_ be.

"Your father died."

Chase can't squeeze tears out of his eyes because he's never been one to cry around onions and he's never been one to be weak.

And he can't hate House for not telling him the truth because he knows that one day, Dr. Robert Chase will be compared to Dr. Gregory House.

(Never Rowan Chase.)

&&

Wilson has always been a sidekick. He's always the one who is picked second. He's always the one who offers to stay late.

Wilson's always the good guy.

Wilson's always the good cop.

Wilson's always saving somebody.

His penance, he decides, is to work as an oncologist. Cancer—the best disease. Malignant and beautiful—betrayal of the body. How can something this girl loves destroy her so completely?

(His hero is Benedict Arnold.)

Perfection, she thinks. She's aimed for completed forms and round circles. She holds onto 1600 SATs and perfect white teeth. This night is not perfect.

If it's raining and the Yankees are winning, how can a night be perfect? She's curled up on her couch under an afghan and the roof is leaking. Again.

There's a pitter and a patter and a home run. They skyrocket through her mind and her brain isn't sure she comprehends.

(She's never understood imperfection.)

There's a fly in Cameron's apartment. It swirls around her head and zaps when it connects with the light. It travels in circles. She reads _"Lolita."_

The fly sputters after its concentrated circling. It lands on the ground—on the carpet. It cannot fly, she notes. It appears to be dying.

So, she places the light pink ribbon inside the book to mark her page and goes to get a cup and a tissue. She can touch blood and she can touch brain, but she cannot touch a fly. She places the cup so that the insect can walk its way into the haven. It resists. She presses the cardboard deeper into the carpet. The fly relents.

She scoops up the cup and lets the tissue flop over it. She makes her way out of her apartment and then down the stairs. Freedom for the fly is forthcoming.

"Hold on," she whispers.

When she opens the front door, she places the cup gently on the stoop and in the dark she cannot see if the fly escapes or not. She looks into the cup.

There's nothing left.

(There was nothing left when she was twenty-one either.)

;';apart;';

There's a theory called The Conservation of Mass—matter cannot be created or destroyed—it just changes its form. Lavoisier's closed system law—what comes in is what comes out. It's unfortunate that those laws don't apply to people, too.

They're torn up and ripped apart—torn apart and ripped up. Their emotions dangle and scalpels cut. They're doctors, of course.

Or bastards. Some people think they're bastards.

(But aren't we all just human?)


End file.
